Outrage, Strategy, and Discernment
Panic is not a political stance.
Hi friends,
In today’s political environment, nearly every headline is framed as a crisis. Social media, fundraising emails, and commentary often intentionally create outrage, leaving many people feeling angry or frustrated. When everything is treated as an existential crisis, it’s hard to distinguish facts from exaggerated narratives. A healthy republic requires more than constant alarm: patience, perspective, and the ability to discern political theater from strategy.
If you’ve been paying any attention to media lately, you’ve probably seen a wave of panic over the latest events in Iran. Headlines warn that the war has crossed a “red line,” that oil markets will collapse, and that the political fallout could harm conservatives in November.
Doom and gloom sells. Media (in general) is negative and short-sighted.
Last night’s coalition strike destroyed Iran’s Tondgouyan refinery near Tehran, producing dramatic images of fire and smoke over the capital. Media outlets immediately framed it as a reckless attack on civilian energy infrastructure and a dangerous escalation.
But that description leaves out at least one key detail: the facility was a central fuel and logistics hub for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The IRGC is not just a military force. It is effectively a parallel (bad actor) government and economic empire controlling large portions of Iran’s oil, banking, transportation, and infrastructure sectors—by some estimates touching over half of Iran’s economy.
In other words, the strike wasn’t random destruction. It targeted the financial oxygen of the regime’s military power.
Equally important, the refinery served domestic fuel needs. Iran’s actual oil export lifeline—Kharg Island—remains untouched.
And that’s a big deal.
Kharg Island is a tiny Persian Gulf outpost that handles about 90% of Iran’s crude exports, roughly 1.5 million barrels per day, much of it destined for China via sanctions-dodging tanker fleets. Destroying Kharg would likely send global markets into panic. Instead, perhaps the strategy is to control that flow rather than destroy it, preserving leverage over the world’s oil supply.
That’s where the story becomes more complex.
While attention is fixed on burning refineries, there was another Trump administration action: the U.S. Treasury signaled that sanctions on Russian oil could be eased, allowing millions of barrels currently stuck in limbo to return to world markets.
That move would instantly replace Iranian supply, stabilizing prices while removing Tehran’s leverage over global energy markets.
It also reshapes the geopolitical board.
China currently depends heavily on discounted oil from Iran, Russia, and Venezuela. If Iranian exports are disrupted, Russian oil reenters global markets, and Venezuelan supply remains constrained, Beijing suddenly loses its cheapest energy sources and must compete at full market prices.
What might appear as chaotic escalation just might be a multi-front pressure campaign:
• Iran’s IRGC loses its financial base
• Russia gains an incentive to move away from Tehran
• China loses discounted energy supplies
• Global oil markets are stabilized through alternative supply
Meanwhile, Iran’s regime faces mounting internal pressure, economic collapse, and growing unrest.
That doesn’t mean the situation is risk-free. The stakes are big, and many variables remain.
But the rush to declare strategic failure says more about modern media cycles than about actual investigative reporting.
Critics often interpret Trump’s moves as chaos in real time. Yet in the past—from tariffs to the Abraham Accords—many actions that initially appeared reckless later revealed a clearer strategic logic. Typically a boon to America and Americans.
Whatever you and I think - and we don’t know the strategy, the current moment may not be about escalation, but about a larger geopolitical realignment goal.
In short, what some commentators see as chaos may be a complicated strategy playing out move by move on a much larger geopolitical board.
If you’d like a deeper historical and geopolitical analysis of how we arrived at this moment, read Tierney's Real News, Iran in 10 Minutes.
Sources:
www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/gentlemens-agreements-sunday-march
tierneyrealnewsnetwork.substack.com/p/iran-in-10-minutes
https://konniburton.com/ (‘The Politics of Permanent Outrage’)
As always, do your own research and make up your own mind.
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Great post Ellen.
American society is overcome with those who allow their emotions to dictate their behaviors. That is how children behave. The screaming baby gets immediate attention. They need immediate gratification. Everything is a life-or-death situation. They are victims. Fear and hatred are the result. It appears that at some point Americans stopped raising children but just kept having children - children raising children.
Emotionally mature people can remain in an uncertain state and calmly let events play out over time while using logic and reasoning to analyze those events to determine the facts as they appear.
They can tolerate the emotional discomfort of uncertainty without treating it as a life-or-death situation or an excuse for finding blame or hating others. They can let a situation remain unresolved without constructing a premature emotionally driven narrative and demonstrate self-discipline instead of lashing out. Most importantly they don’t succumb to fear or hate and the urgent need to fill those gaps with misinformation and foul outbursts that offer immediate self-righteous gratification. They act like how we expect mature adults to act.
I personally can't comprehend wasting everyday of my life centered on hatred and the paranoia it creates. No wonder antipsychotic medications are among the most commonly prescribed and highest-selling medication classes.